Ray Turney's Rune Rule Set

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FIRE AND SWORD-Chapter 9

Miscellaneous

9/13/98

Divine Intervention

Divine Intervention may be used by Acolytes and above.

Divine Intervention, is done on a Stormbringer like system. Your character earns the favor of his deity through his deeds. To acquire D.F a character must be at least an initiate in the cult. A generalized D.F. table would go like this:

+1 for becoming 12 or better in a cult skill +2 for becoming 15 or better in a cult skill
+3 for becoming 18 or better in a cult skill
+1 for completing a normal adventure on behalf of the cult
+2 for completing a dangerous adventure on behalf of the cult
+3 for completing a HeroQuest on behalf of the cult
+1 for completing a dangerous adventure on behalf of an allied cult.
+2 per point of POW sacrificed to the god without gaining a divine spell in return

-1 for helping an enemy of the cult in a substantial way
-1 for joining another cult of the same pantheon
-3 for joining a cult outside of the pantheon
-5 for joining an unrelated sorcery school or shamanic tradition

+1 for killing a chaotic creature {if Orlanth pantheon}
+2 for killing a chaotic creature {if Storm Bull}
+1 for killing an enemy of your cult {undead if Humakht, etc}
+1 for each non lunar converted to the Lunar way {if Seven Mothers or Rufelza}
+2 for attaining Enlightenment {if Lunar}
+1 per other lunar seeking Enlightenment who attains it through answering your riddles
+1 per 1000 L. given to the cults of Issaries or Etyries, if Issaries or Etyries other cult specific modifiers may be added at the discretion of the GM.

A character may have Divine Favor from more than one deity.

To use Divine Favor, roll D100 if an initiate, 2D20 if an acoyle, D20 if a champion of the cult.

Divine Favor may be used for the following:

a) Divine Favor may be used to obtain Divine Inspiration from the god even if one is not a champion, or if a champion may be used to roll twice and take the better of the two results. This costs three divine favor points.

b) Creation of a relic of your deity - see magic item creation rules. This costs one per power point of the relic.

If a deity denies a request for a favor once, he may, at the discretion of the GM, continue denying requests for that favor as long as the GM remembers the request. Usually, the GM should allow a second request only when the character's situation has significantly changed.

Magic Items

Generic, all purpose P.S. items are abolished. Who uses what varies with type of magic.

Shamans make two general types of magic items. One, called a medicine bundle because it is most found in enhancing Heal, adds 1 point to maximum casting level of a spirit {i.e. POW/4 +1}, and subtracts 1D3 spirit magic points to a minimum cost of one, per point of enchantment. The second, called a fetish, is really a spirit binding enchantment. It is an image or statue of the form of the spirit, and can be made for all types of RQ III spirits. Ordinary spirits can only be used to power spirit and the spirit type cult magic; not divine or sorcerous magic. The skill to make medicine bundles and fetishes is called shamanistic enchantment, and is no longer a separate skill but is factored into "tradition lore". Figuring out how to use either a medicine bundle or a fetish requires a spirit lore roll, or a tradition lore roll. It may also require spirit combat.

Divine Magicians are not in the habit of enchanting magic items. They use the traditional "god's blood" crystals of Dragon Pass, which are the same as always except that even dead crystals have runic alignment and can only be used by initiates who have a rune in common with them. They can also create relics, usually by using Divine Favor at the end of a character's life, to pass on to his children. A relic usually has some form related to the deity. It confers knowledge of a divine spell as if it had been sacrificed for. Finally, cult spirit binding enchantments may be created by anyone who knows how to both summon and dominate cult spirits, and is willing to sacrifice 1 POW point per characteristic of spirit bound. Cult spirits may know and power cult and divine magic specific to that deity only.

Enchanted armor works as follow:

a) enchanted iron is plus two, compared to normal equivalent armor;

b) enchanting any non iron rune metal armor allows the enchanter to call upon divine favor to make the armor a cult relic, D.I automatically working but costing D.F. as above. Enchanted rune metal armor also goes to normal effectiveness. Making aluminum result in the wearer floating automatically costs only one point of D.F. for water cultists. Gold armor will double the wearer's charisma.

Enchanted weapons:

a) if iron are +2

b) may be made cult relics as above if non iron rune metal.

Books

Books, scrolls, etc can offer checks in writing and lore skills. If the character is spending most of his time reading, each check takes two days to learn. If the character is squeezing his reading in around other activities, such as traveling, each check takes five days to get. In either case, the character must make a R/W roll in the language the text is written in, unless the purpose of the text is specifically to teach that language. Failing the R/W roll costs nothing but the time spent reading. Fumbling causes the character to lose 1 point in the relevant lore skill due to misunderstanding the text.

Some texts are advanced. These require a roll of the relevant lore skill{s}, as well as a reading skill roll, to understand. Advanced texts give a +5 when making the roll to learn from the text.

Example:

Izates is offered a scroll which will increase his Esrolian culture lore, giving him five checks in Esrolian culture lore, and in Ernalda Cult Lore, giving him two checks in that. Unfortunately, Izates leads a busy life, and does not have fourteen days to read at the moment, evn if he could make all of the relevant R/W Esrolian rolls. With a R/W Esrolian skill of 10, this is a big assumption. But he can learn something from it without reading the whole thing, so he argues that neither he nor anyone else in the market will have time to read the whole thing. This means that of course, the price should be lower ...

Social Standing

These tables are used to keep track of a character's social standing. There are three different types of standing:

Fame, Infamy, and Professional. Fame is the sum of a character's outstandingly good acts, attributes, etc. In general, characters with high fame will be respected by people in the cultures they have lores in. Infamous characters are well known, and their deeds remembered, but infamy generally confers less influence. Professional Standing is specific to an archetype; it confers respect from others of that archetype, but is less important to the world as a whole.

Fame

Benefit Cause

+1 For Charm of 18

+1 For total property in excess of 50000 Lunar

+1 For being an initiate or higher in at least one cult {publicly accepted in the culture}

+1 For having 10 or higher professional standing points in their respective archetype

+1 For owning a horse, magic sword, or visible magic item

+1 For being an acolyte {five cult skills, including cult lore, 15+}, OR priest, OR journeyman sorcerer (five magical skills, including school or sorcery lore, 15+) OR being a shaman with a fetch and 5 shaman archetype skills 15+

+1 For meeting a king or hero.

+1 For each skill 25 or over

+1 For each noble archetype skill known at 18 or higher skill.

+1 For making 5000 Lunar a year in income from land and official salary

+1 For each notable exploit performed in the presence of others, likely to be talked of. This usually means a critical success on a roll of importance to the entire party.

+1 For each great song, or great book, composed or written about the actions of a character {great requires a critical success}

+1 For being a Rufelza initiate {New Pelorian culture only}

+1 For a consistent pattern of conduct admired in the culture {i.e. a character becomes known among the other players as remarkably generous, or brave}.

+X For titles or offices as specified in the title/office description.

+2 For owning three or more total horses and magic items

+2 For total property in excess of 250000 Lunars

+2 For having 20 or higher professional standing points in their respective archetype

+2 For being a champion (5 or more cult skills 18+), OR Jakaleeli Witch, Rufelza Adept, or Malkioni Magus (five sorcery skills or spells, including school lore or sorcery lore, 18+), or great shaman (total personal plus fetch power 25+, and five shaman archetype skills at 18 or higher)

+2 For making 10000 Lunar a year in income from land and official salary

+1 For being a Priest or Champion of Rufelza {New Pelorian Culture only}

+3 For making 50000 Lunar a year in income from land and official salary

+3 For total property in excess of 1000000 Lunars

+2 For each skill over 25 in noble, soldier, scholar or sorcerer

+2-5 Per HeroQuest completed or heroic item carried

Infamy

+1 For each dishonorable or evil act performed

+1 Per act of total obnoxiousness {i.e. whenever a character does something that still leaves the other players rolling their eyes at the next session}

+1 For each fumble in a visible situation, such as physically colliding with an enemy while you are sneaking forward insignificantly

+1 For Charm 6 or less

+1 For being known as a member of a disliked cult.

+2 For being a member of hated cult.

+1 Per visible chaotic feature {except New Pelorian}

Professional Standing

+1 Per crit rolled in an archetype skill, in the presence of other professionals as authorized by the GM.

+1 Per archetype skill 15+

+2 Per archetype skill 18+ (combinable with the 15+)

+1 Per cult character is initiated in that is appropriate for the archetype

+1 Per 3 points of relevant cult divine magic known.

+Fame Add total fame points at the end

-Infamy Subtract total infamy points at the end

Note that a character will usually have 3 or 4 different totals; for example Laurus would have fame points, maybe infamy points, and soldier professional standing points.

HEROQUESTING

In general, four things can be done on the Hero Plane. A character may gain superhuman skill, through learning from heroic experience. This merely involves doing something and surviving the quest. A character may gain more than normal species max in magical power. Again, this involves doing something magical on the hero plane and surviving. A character may gain what is known as a heroic power. This involves becoming what is variously known as an archetype, shadow, or incarnation of something on the Hero Plane. This may be achieved through acceptance, or through conquest. Jar-Eel accepted her role as an incarnation of the Red Goddess, while Harrek killed the White Bear. In the end, though, it came to the same thing. Both became a greater entity, and assumed not just the powers but also the character of that entity. This can and does operate on a much lesser scale affecting PC's. To simulate this, the character gains a power that he would have access to in no other way, but also a Pendragon style personality profile which fits not his character, but that larger entity. The GM gets the ability to force him to roll against this profile, at any time convenient to the GM, much as in a bad Pendragon game. Thus, heroic power can be very great, but an extemely mixed blessing. Finally, a character may acquire a powerful weapon or item. This again has a Pendragon style personality of its own, and the player may be forced to roll to overcome it if his character and the item have a falling out.

To simulate the greater difficulty of doing things on the Hero Plane, D200, D300 etc may be rolled.

Since time is not a stabilizing factor on the Hero Plane, the GM may use any system he wants for deciding initiative. Higher will roll goes first, or quest requires enemy to go first, etc, are all possibilites;

To go onto the Hero Plane, a character must be motivated by some trait or passion to undertake the quest. This comes down to the GM asking the player why the character is going, and considering whether or not he believes the response. If he buys it, the trait or passion gets a check, and the character comes. If he doesn't the character doesn't get onto the Hero Plane voluntarily.

Will is the sum of fame and POW/4. Will may be used to reroll any dice on the Hero Plane, at a cost of one Will point if the roll is _not_ significantly better when rerolled. Will may also be used to alter reality, doing things like learning spells a character would not normally be able to learn or acquiring a Heroic Power. The cost of doing this varies from power to power, etc, but in general is 4 or more points.

More rules for HQ will be produced if needed. Right now our current lot of characters is not exactly heroic, and even Glorion will need to restock on Magic Items before going onto the Hero Plane.

The first, and still most widely played Fantasy Role Playing game is Dungeons & Dragons (TM). A brief discussion of basic D & D concepts, as relevant to these rules and Glorantha, is given below.

Class and Level

Character class corresponds most closely to the archetypes discussed in character creation. Both serve the important function of giving the player guidance about what his character can do, and basic information about how his character's occupation affects his character's view of the world.

Level is best thought of as a simple but crude way to measure what Fire & Sword breaks down into separate skills.

If you have to convert a character from D&D to Fire And Sword, it is probably best to figure out which archetype he best fits in and give him skill levels comparable to those he would have to perform the same tasks in D & D. I do not recommend this, however, because the implicit assumption underlying the concept of level, that given a character's class he has a specific, defined set of skills at a determinate level of skill, does not hold for Fire & Sword archetypes and skills.

Good And Evil

Glorantha differs from the various D&D worlds in that characters are not seen as essentially good or evil. Thus, a character starts out neither good nor evil. His actions while played determine whether he is seen as good or bad. If a character is involved with more than one culture, he may be separately evaluated as good or bad by each, since the standards of what is good or bad vary from one culture to another.

Law and Chaos

Also, in the beginning, characters are neither Lawful nor Chaotic. A character becomes lawful or chaotic based on his actions. For more on Law and Chaos, see below.

Law and Chaos are valid concpets in Glorantha, but the meanings of these concepts are very different in Glorantha than they are in D & D.

APPENDIX B

Appendix II, Lunar Cycles

Outside the Glowline, Lunar magic is subject to cyclical
effects. In these rules, this is modeled by treating POW and
all magical skills as:

+3 at full moon
unmodified at half moon {waxing and waning}
-3 at crescent moon
-6 at dark moon.

This applies for all purposes except increasing power and
learning. For these purposes, POW and magickal skills are unaffected
by the lunar cycle.

Magic is considered Lunar if the caster is from a culture
which accepts the Red Goddess {i.e. any place within the Glowline} or
if the caster has personally accepted the Goddess by joining an explicitly
Lunar cult {Rufelza, Seven Mothers, any of the individual Seven Mothers,
Hwarin Dalthippa, or Etyries}.

Appendix C, Cults

This appendix contains a brief description of the major cults, their associated cult skills their roles, and special rules unique to each. Since the world of Glorantha as envisioned by Greg Stafford is

in constant flux, and the primary purpose of this appendix is to describe the cults as they are used in this set of rules, the following versions of the cults are in no way official or exhaustive.

Lunar Cults

These cults are the core of Lunar worship, as opposed to the many associated cults worshipped in the Lunar Empire. These deities are directly associated with the return of the Goddess.

Deezola: Lunar healing heroine, usually worshipped as a hero of Erissa, but also sometimes worshipped as a hero of Rufelza, or as one of the Seven Mothers. Her cult has no access to common spells, but where appropriate the relevant spells of Erissa, Rufelza or Seven Mothers can be used.

Irripi On-Tor: The scholar who started the quest of the Seven Mothers, he is worshipped as a Hero, not a god. As a hero, he is worshipped as a part of the Seven Mothers, Rufelza, and Red Emperor cults. In Seven Mothers, he is seen as the scholar member of the team, and as most responsible for teaching Lunar culture. As a hero of Rufelza, he is responsible for teaching people who are unready to become Rufelza initiates the New Pelorian culture, New Pelorian Spoken Language and Custom, and Natural Philosophy {Natural Philosophy counts as Irripi On-Tor cult lore} necessary to understand the teachings of Rufelza. As a companion of the Emperor, he is a Lore Master who informs and advises as necessary.

Spells: All Common, Aim Catapult, Arc of Fire, Hooves of Speed, Shield I, II, III; Vision of the Third Eye.

Jakaleel: This cult worships the sorceress, Jakaleel the Witch, who brought the art of sorcery to the followers of the Red Goddess. Jakaleel was not a nice person, and she developed a number of unpleasant but effective spells. She is the patron of spies, and lunar agents of all types. The cult has no priests, but three grades of membership; apprentice, journeyman, and witch or warlock. An apprentice is any sorceror with skills less than or equal to those of a medium level starting character. A journeyman is a sorceror with skills slightly greater than a middle level starting character, up to master status. A witch or warlock h is any character with ten or more cult favor points. Jakaleel Lore, though a sorcery school lore and not a divine cult lore, counts as a cult lore for purpose of joining Rufelza.

Skills: Jakaleel Lore, New Pelorian Culture Lore, Hide, Ceremony, Enchant, Summon, any sorcery spell the availability of which is not restricted or which is listed as available to characters with Jakaleel Lore.

Divine Spells: None

Rufelza: The cult for those seeking illumination. The visible aspect of the Red Goddess, the red disk in the sky. To join Rufelza a character must be "cultured", that is have a Speak New Pelorian Language and Custom, Written New Pelorian Language and Lore, and the cult lore skill of the cult he is attempting to join Rufelza from, all at a skill of 15 or higher. The applicant must also have the support of the cult he is coming from, abstracted as having seven or more divine favor points; or be famous, abstracted as having seven or more Fame Points.

Sedenyaa: The aspect of the Red Goddess which can only be understood after attaining Enlightenment. Sedenya acts as a sorcery or transcendant goddess, for purposes of seeking Divine Inspiration. Inspiration can be sought regarding any cult skill, of any god or goddess listed as a Lunar cult. Sedenya initiates may also become initiates of any lunar cult, without going through the normal process of being judged for suitabilty. Finally Sedenya Worshippers may Fix Chaos Gift on the fly, sacrificing one POW point at the time they get the Chaos Gift they want to keep, without having to sacrifice for the divine spell ahead of time. Sedenyans cease to see themselves in terms of particular archetypes, and may put their experience checks into any skills desired.

Sedenyans are still subject to normal consideration for suitability by non-lunar cults, even those listed below as Lunar associates. They are also still only able to be a rune lord in one cult at a time, even if qualify for such status in two or more cults.

Takenegi {Red Emperor} Hero cult of the emperor, joined mostly at the upper levels by bureaucrats and the politically ambiitious. Fairly popular amond officers in the Heartland Corps of the Imperial Army as well. Follows Yelm in having an unusual structure, instead of the normal ranks of worshipper, initiate, priest and lord; it has worshipper, citizen, spatharios/tribune, and priest. Worshippers are like worshippers in other cults, and have no special rights or priviliges. Citizens are people who have earned, or whose ancestors earned, the right to be tried according to lunar law. Spatharios and tribune are the leaders of the cult, they are officers and administrators. Priests are retired officials who are honored, paid a modest sum, and called upon to lead the occasional Ceremony and provide advice.

Notes: Citizenship requires initiation in a lunar cult and and (Bribe/100)+Fame Points >= 100. Tribune requires (Bribe/100)+Fame Points+Points above 10 in cult skills > 50. Tribune pays between 1200 and 4800 L. a year depending on the prestige of the posting, a character usually starts at the bottom and works up. By tradition tribunes are usually also members of either Rufelza or Yanafal, sometimes both. There are also a fair number of Yelm-Red Emperor combination characters.

Seven Mothers: This is a missionary cult, responsible for bringing New Pelorian civilaization to the barbarians, and raising religious consciousness in the armies of the Empire. As such it offers free classses in New Pelorian Spoken Language and Custom; and New Pelorian Written Language and Cultural Lore. It also runs some orphanages in Raibanth.

Note: Seven Mothers initiates get free training in New Pelorian Spoken Language and Custom, and New Pelorian Culture Lore, so all checks are treated as training checks, until the character reaches 15 skill. Seven Mothers Initiates often join the Hero cults of Deezolai, Irripi On-Tor, or Danfive Xaron as well.

Yanafal: The cult for lunar army officers, and to a much lesser degree nobles. Holy weapon is the scimitar. Initiates may learn sorcery, but this prevents them from becoming pritests or rune lords

Notes: the rank and file of many infantry units are members of this cult.

Nysalor: The form of the Red Goddess worshipped in Dara Happan culture, and, under the name Nysalor/Gbaji, the deity must prominently associated in history with Illuminaiton. His distinctive approach to Enlightenment is the "riddle".

Notes: Nysalor illumination is most used to allow a character to transcend his archetype; it also allows Dara Happans to embrace non Dara Happan cultures and even chaos. It confers few direct benefits, unlike Rufelza. Nysalori who attain Enlightenment and qualify to join Rufelza may join Sedenya.

Oria: Lodril's Wife, also Turos's wife, the most widely worshipped deity of the Lunar Empire. Has a variety of spells to improve cooking, weaving, farming, etc. Usually not relevant for adventurers. Cult skills: Cooking, farming, Weaving, Spoken Dara Happan Language.

Cult skills: Custom, Bargaining, Dance, Insight

Spells: Usually not relevant for adventuring.

Oslira: Another greater goddess, not quite as important as Oria. She doesn't enhance farming so much; but adds boating and swimming to the skill inventory.

Shargash: The Yelmi version of Orlanth adventurous, except in Alkoth. A warrior god who is seen as having accepted the authority of Yelm, Shargash is accepted in the Empire. He also has leader god and death deity aspects, prominent in Alkoth but usually ignored elsewhere.

Notes: Shargash worshippers venerate the city of Alkoth as their most holy site, nearly always wear maces, and basically all warrior archetype characters. They tend to favor black and red in clothing.

Yelm: God of horse riding aristocracy, brought into the Empire long before the rise of the goddess. Sun God. Cult has unusual structure, ranks are Youth, Warrior, Lord and Sage.

Cult skills: Youth, use adventurer archetype;

Warrior, use Warrior or Soldier archetype;

Lord, use noble archetype;

Sage, use priest or scholar archetype.

Language and Culture must be Dara Happan, Weapon skill must be Bow or spear, Yelm cult lore always appropriate no matter what a character's rank.

Promotion from one rank to the next is as follows:

to Youth - at birth if father a Yelmi, otherwise requires adoption which may even be done as an adult, but is a big favor usually granted only to characters who qualify for warrior, have 10 fame points and have done a big favor for a Yelmi family or temple.

Youth to Warrior: 5 Warrior skills at a level of 10 or higher.

Warrior to Lord: 5 Noble, non weapon, skills at 10 or higher, 5 fame points or father was/is a Lord.

Lord or Warrior to Sage: Age 50+, 5 skills 15+, Dara Happan Culture Lore 15+, Yelm Cult Lore 15+, 5 Fame points; Each additional fame point over 5 allows addition of 1 year to a character's effective age, thus a 40 year old character w/ 15 fame points would qualify.

{Note to myself: Lords should have the new version of Bless Worshippers, and Priests the double roll on Insight spell}

Notes: Yelm is a version of sun worship that came in from the Plains of Pent in very ancient times, associated with Fire, the color red, and ancestor worship. Its members think of themselves of noble decendants of ancestors greater than themselves.

Yelmalio: This cult was created by followers of Elmal, the Orlanthi Light god, who rebeled against the authority of Orlanth and the ancestor worship of the Yelmi. Structurally it is like Yelm, but it does not have Spirit Sight, Firespear, Shooting Star, Spirit Warrior, Aura of Majesty, Lyre Mastery, Summon Ancestral Spirit, or Sunspear. It does have Spirit of the Phalanx, Strength of the Earth, and Warrior Mind for Yelmalion soldiers {the equivalent of the Yelmi Warrior} as part compensation. As a small cult, it lacks 3 point spells.

Appendix D, Enlightenment

What Enlightenment is in Glorantha, and its implications, are of course Greg Stafford's province, not mine. But Greg {like the Buddhists from whom he presumably got the idea of Enlightenment}, has been less than a model of analytic clarity in describing it. In spite of which, some rules are necessary. So, taking a hint from a remark by Greg that Illumination is more a way of seeing than a state of being, I've decided to treat illumination as a sort of Cosmic Spot Hidden.

To "attain" Enlightenment, a character must critical Meditation or Mystic Dance skills; or roll a critical when asked a riddle for a skill by a riddler. Attaining Enlightenment creates an "Illumination" skill of 4. This allows the player to try to roll his character's Illumination whenever he wants the character to do or perceive something that can only be done by an illuminate. Attaining Enlightenment also allows a character to join Sedenya, if he is qualified in all other respects to join Rufelza.

A character's illumination is increased as if it were a normal skill, except that before rolling the check to increase illumination the player must manage a normal success with his character's Meditation or Mystic Dance skill {or his character must have answered a riddle in the previous session of game play}. If the character cannot make Meditiation or Mystic Dance, the character lacks insight, and the player must assign the check to another skill or sorcery spell.

Some examples of when an illumination roll would be necessary:

a) To accept unfixed Chaos Gift without resistance;

b) To break an oath sworn by Invocation of Yanafal, or cult geas, and remain unaffected by the Curse;

c) To sacrifice for a spell from a deity in the Lunar {if Rufelza} or Dara Happan Solar {if Nysalor} pantheon whose cult you are not normally a member of;

d) To ignore the rules restricting a character's skill check allocation to archetype or cult skills and allocate them however the player pleases;

e) To resist attack by hostile spirits, thorugh spiritual transparency {illuminates recognize that they have no essence, which makes it hard to harm them by damaging that essence}

Players of illuminated characters should keep track of how they became illuminated, anb by which lineage, since eventually it will probably turn out that Rufelza illumination, Nysalor illumination, Rashoran/Rashorana illumination all produce slightly different results; in game terms this will resemble sorcery where how hard a sorcery spell is to learn sometimes varies considerably with the sorcery school a character belongs to.

Poison Damage

Poisons come in a number of potencies. For simplicity, poison attacks are treated as if they were weapon attacks. If a poison is ingested, or absorbed, roll on the lethality table as if the character were hit by a weapon. Treat one wound as creating a feeling of nausea and imposing a difficulty of five for all skill use until the character recovers. More wounds, but not enough to incapacitate, cause more intense nausea, a feeling of dizziness, and a difficulty of ten for skill use. Enough wounds to incapacitate results in a roll for possible death, as described in the combat chapter under Incapacitation. Some unusually lethal poisons have a minimum lethality. For example, a poison might have D12 lethality +4 wounds.

Recovery from poisoning is different from wound healing. Wound Healing spells are ineffective. To recover from poisoning, make a roll of D20 against Constitution. On the first round only, the roll must also overcome the potency of the poison as a difficulty. The first Con roll is made five minutes after posioning; subsequent Con rolls are made two hours after poisoning and every four hours thereafter. Each successful recovery roll reduces the effectiveness of the poisoning by one level. Thus, a character suffering from nausea is cured by one recovery roll; a character suffering acute nausea and dizziness is merely nauseous after one recovery roll and needs two recovery rolls to be fully cured. Incapacitated characters must first reduce to intense nausea, then to nausea, before finally being cured. If a character dies, he cannot recover from poisoning by normal means.

Antidotes are usually specific to a particular poison; they automatically reduce the intensity of a poisoning effect by one level. Thus a dose of scorpion venom antidote, drunk before getting into a fight with Scorpion Men, will reduce acute nausea to nausea, and nausea to no effect.

Poisoned characters who are Resurrected, or who Return Like the Phoenix, are incapacitated, and must recover from the poisoning normally {i.e. in effect the spell undoes the roll to die, but does nothing to the poison}.